Searching for Babylon
by Eohelm92
Summary: In the Hummelverse, a tank of the vicious South is sick of the fighting, but can't escape it. It's molded him, but he wants out. Follow his journey and his attempts at survival in hope of, someday, finding a family and a purpose.
1. Lost

To avoid confusion, this is the unit organization used by tanks in the South:  
>Two tanks are a dyas, a fighting pair.<br>Four tanks are a Lance, the basic tactical unit.  
>Four Lances make up a Squadron (16 tanks)<br>Four Squadrons are a Company (64 tanks)  
>Four Companies are a Regiment (256 tanks)<br>Four Regiments are a Division (1024 tanks)

_Chapter 1 -_

_Twelve Years Previous – the Great Desert Bridge of Northern Africa, the Sinai_

They had been fighting for four days, the only break in the desperate retreat brought on by the sudden sandstorm. Appearing as if by magic, it dropped a violent curtain of dust, dirt, and chaos. Lances could barely stay in communication between distortion caused by the storm and the fact that half of the regiment's radios were out of commission. The only consistent order had been "retreat," and this was given three days ago.

The sandstorm had done what the enemy army had been attempting for months: it had eroded away the shaking morale of the Dragonaurs Corps as if it were a sad sitting stone, setting the survivors of the furious desert storm up for a ferocious, will-shattering blow.

To Eohelm, enduring the howl of the wind and the striking stings of the sand, the storm had done what no ordered retreat had: brought some small measure of peace. But as his turret slowly panned, the Cromwell had also realized what else the sandstorm had done, the damage it had wrought.

It made him feel alone.

The screaming of the gale drowned out his radio's music and made communication with the rest of the scouting team almost impossible. Visibility was at an absolute minimum and he could barely see Borris—covered in his tarp and half-buried with sand, his barrel angled into the dirt as if dead—twenty yards to his right. The rest of the four-man scouting party were beyond the T-34/85 and thus out of sight.

Eohelm's sigh was ragged but it was lost, rudely yanked away from him by the incessant howling, the banshees that surrounded him. He tried his radio once more, begging for some reprieve from his new-found loneliness.

He dared not risk turning his radio up loud enough that he could drown out the weather, for his lance was hoping to keep some measure of stealth. They had dug in and decided to endure the sandstorm when it came, but when it passed Eohelm knew they would continue their scouting run to ensure their force was not being outflanked in their retreat. With that in mind he kept his volume low, if the radio even worked. He took a hit near the casing two days ago and its performance had been spotty since. Fortunately for now, it decided to cooperate.

But the music was overpowered.

The wind continued.

He wanted to scream. Just thinking of the small unofficial ceasefire brought on by the storm made him realize that he felt better fighting. Action and work were the cure for his current ailment. He was run too ragged to think until he knew he was safe. Sitting here stewing in the middle of a storm was not safe.

Might be good to try and get a hold of Whisper. Whisper was Eohelm's cousin as well as the other half of their dyas, or fighting pair, a T20 heavily-armed Scout. The Dragonaurs always fought in pairs at absolute minimum, no matter what. Most were bonded for years when they joined the Corps. Eohelm and Whisper joined together.

"Sprinter Four, Sprinter Three. Over." He waited for a response. There was only static. He swore to himself, the oath lost to the gale. He ran a short diagnostic on his radio. Sand had leaked in, was working with all the interference flying around in the storm to screw Eohelm's range.

"Sprinter One, Sprinter Three. Over." He tried his radio again, opening a tighter personal channel with the lance leader. He silently begged for an answer. The voice that responded was gruff, rough. The quality was likely brought on by fatigue, but Borris always sounded at least a little grumpy.

"Go for One, over."

"I can't see the others. Are we still in formation, over?"

"Ask yourself."

"Storm's fucking with my range. Do me the favor."

There was a pause, a small exhale of frustration over the line, and a sudden cut-off of static as Borris changed channels. Eohelm figured that the T-34/85 was passing the request on down the line after taking a moment to compose himself. The past week was taking its toll on everyone. Borris was always gruff but he usually tempered it with the patience of a boulder.

In theory, he would be behind the other half of his dyas, Tear. The T-34/85 and his accompanying Panzer IV(H) were not as fast as the other fighting pair making up their lance—Eohelm and his cousin—but they were the only two with consistently working radios.

The 2nd Medium Regiment—of which Eohelm's Lance Charlie (Sprinter Lance) of Delta Squadron, 4th Company, served—were acting in this most recent campaign as flankers, raiders, and rapid-response support fighters. But with the casualties mounting in this disaster, tanks were being pressed into roles they weren't necessarily built for. Which is why a T34/85 was leading a scouting party.

Eohelm's radio crackled and Borris' voice came through, the weakness of the signal doing nothing to blunt his demeanor. "Sprinter Three, Sprinter One, over."

"Go for Three, over."

"Everyone's fine, Three. When the storm abates Four will rotate to the rear and the rest of us will move up as per normal. Two will take lead. I have a feeling the storm will break soon. Over."

"Here's hoping. Thanks for the information. Out."

The line cut off and the Cromwell was alone again. After a moment he felt his spirits plummet once more as the gale picked up his notice. The storm was angry at his trying to ignore it; the wind sounded twice as loud and the sand tried to get under his tarp and into his parts with renewed vigor.

Three more hours would pass until the storm broke.

Three more hours of rerunning the past week in his head, reliving the death of friends and family. Three more hours of raw _temptation_ to call Borris once more, to beg the rough Russian for the favor of his company.

The fight had gone so _well_ at first. After their border-lands were subject to unprompted skirmishes and raids, the Dragonaurs attacked. Their advance into the desert was met with great victory as the Almohaes Coalition's pickets were thrashed deeper west into the desert they claimed. Sprinter Lance and the rest of the 5th Company were holding the southern flank. This meant that they were not only deepest into enemy territory but also the most exposed to an outflanking counter-attack and farthest from water.

It all went well until the Almohaes counter-attacked. But they hit a portion of the front no one expected: the center, the weakest portion of the Dragonaurs line. The flanks had been strengthened the day before for fear of an outflanking strike. When the Corps leader—Feather, the legendary general—weakened the flanks to repel what he thought was the main Almohaes thrust, the enemy struck with their true strength: an entire Division on the Southern flank, 1024 tanks against the meagre 64 heavy tanks, 32 light tanks, and 160 medium tanks of the 2nd Medium Regiment.

While the 2nd was reinforced by the 3rd Heavy Regiment—all that could be afforded—it simply wasn't enough. The two divisions of the Dragonaurs had been on a retreat to their own lines ever since.

Four days and the Almohaes had not let up. The casualties were horrendous for the attackers—a good deal of these numbers were young tanks, only one of the regiments consisted of tanks past fifth tier—but they were still gaining the upper hand. The lights of both southern regiments faced an 80% casualty rate and the Command Company of the 3rd Heavy had sacrificed themselves yesterday to stem the tide of a massive thrust.

Eohelm could still remember seeing the E-100: Mack, the leader of the entire 3rdHeavy, blazing away with his massive cannon on his crest of dune, his tracks pierced and shattered in seven different places while his lance lay about him in smoking wrecks and his life-partner—dyas-half and wife—bathed in flames at his side as enemies began to over-run and circle their position. On fire for the glory of their leader's memory and the promise of the eternity that was their religious warrior's paradise, the last squadron of the 3rd died around their father as they were swarmed.

Eohelm was in the screen covering the retreat: what was left of the mangled 2nd Medium and those of the 3rd too wounded to fight, taking advantage of Mack's last stand. Sitting in his tarp, lost in his memories, the Cromwell could hear the chorus of the Third's last squadron. In their famous battle lust, they howled and sang as they slew and died.

Their sacrifice held off the enemy for the rest of the day, long enough for the storm to set in. Word had reached Feather, and rumor in the retreating columns was that he wept bitterly.

Holly, Mack's wife, was Feather's sister. The commander had lost the last two members of his family in a single horribly failed operation.

Three hours until the storm let up.

The silence was worse to Eohelm than the winds. There was no discussion as everyone shook out the sand that got past their covers, no banter as everyone took formation and Tear took point. Whisper was now tail-end-charlie. There was no talk as Sprinter Lance uncovered their tarps and rolled them back up, leaving.

Their company was relying on them for information and survival. Levity could wait.

The only noise that pierced the day was the low rumbling of engines. Eohelm was left in his silence. He prayed that he would be home soon. Home to safety and love, music and life.

The silence would kill him long before the enemy would, he knew.


	2. Discovery

_Chapter 2 -_

_Twelve Years Previous – the Great Desert Bridge of Northern Africa, the Sinai_

A couple hours had passed since the storm had abated and the lance had left. The Dragonaurs column was retreating North-East for the cover of the Jordanian mountains, so scouts were told to scan to the direct South and West to ensure the Almohaes had not regrouped entirely.

The storm caught them strung out in attack on a desperately retreating formation, and could possibly have done as much damage to their communication as an actual counter-attack. Feather's advanced orders to all scouting parties were to attack isolated lances or lone vehicles, taking prisoners when possible.

Eohelm hoped that, if they were destined to find contact, the lance did find them in the scattered disorganized columns that Feather and the rest of the battered task force prayed for. His few conversations with Whisper—when the damn radio worked—ensured the Cromwell that he wasn't the only one. Borris still seemed in a fouler mood than usual, and Tear was always quiet. Eohelm assumed that "quiet" could easily become someone's natural state when paired with someone like Borris.

The desert here was terrible. Eohelm hated it. When cresting a dune—carefully, always frighteningly carefully for fear of waiting guns on the other side—the land could be seen for kilometers, just as it could for the few times that it was nothing but flat wasteland. The find enemy tanks the lance traveled specifically from one large dune to the next, committing a large area scan each time. But that hardly ever happened. To avoid being spotted in enemy territory the lance's column traveled below the crests of sand, near constantly in some valley or another.

So far behind enemy lines as they were Eohelm couldn't help but feel that every miniature valley held some unknown terror, an M103 or Maus come to slaughter him. He was constantly concerned that there was enemy on the other side of the ridge. Academically he knew that this fear was entirely irrational: any enemies would be heard for several hundred meters if they were traveling with any degree of speed. But the loneliness of the land was seeping into his inner chassis.

The dunes were a golden ocean, majestic and calm, a snapshot of a sea caught in a raging storm with surges twenty or thirty feet high. It was an almost surreal foil to think of, and could even be described by some as peaceful-looking. But the illusion was easily broken: even the Cromwell knew that oceans held life. There was no such thing here. Plants were non-existent and animals were nowhere in sight.

The only life they would find, they would likely be forced to end. The thought drove Eohelm mad.

"This place is sick," he muttered to himself. But his mind raged for lack of something to pull his attention.

_You were born in this land_, it hissed at him when he considered his hate for it. _You are a product of it, a soldier of this "sick" place. You live here and others have died to ensure it. What does that make you?_

Eohelm sighed. The land and the seeming lonely attitude of the place was getting to him. He was a soldier born in the hot Southlands but he wasn't born to a place like this. His home was a hard place but it was a place of mountains. There was desert around but it was livelier. There were plants, small animals, life. There were tanks all over. Younglings wandered there from the mysterious factories where newborns were made, the massive buildings guarded by their eternally vigilant tier nines and tens.

Families formed by virtue of bond alone in his homeland. They formed and the land was just kind enough that they could thrive. That alone was enough to make him love it enough to defend it with his last breath.

There was one thing that his temporarily abusive psyche was correct about. Eohelm was born to these lands and others died to ensure that he lived. Despite his beliefs that his land was kinder than this—even if only a little, but that was enough—the South as a whole was a place ravaged by war. Families formed by love alone, but they were torn apart all the time by conflict between large groups and clans.

For those who want escape there is the potential for the North, but they'd have to pass through Balkan lands and territories surrounding them, places that were subject to much more intensive organized clan warfare between much stronger—and more vicious, depending on who one asked—vehicles.

"Everyone stop. Fuel break. Standard four-point formation." The T-34/85's voice broke an hour of silence and thought.

The column took the defensive position, one vehicle pointing at each of the four map points. Eohelm's position in the column—third in line—ensured that he was facing West as everyone took in their fuel.

There was a dune to his end which forced him to scan the crest of it, panning left and right as he heard Borris call in to Feather's headquarters and report to their scout handler. Fortunately they hadn't lost their bearings in the fury of the sandstorm and, even better, they had traveled almost an entire day around the Southern flank without hitting resistance. The Almohaes might have had enough, exhausted through sheer victory and its high cost.

The idea elated all four of them. The chance to finally come back to the company of the team-mates was at hand. They could abandon the loneliness, this land of death.

Borris turned his radio's receiver up on its highest volume so the other three members of the lance could hear their newest orders—everyone hoped for an order to return to the column—as they all took in fuel and scanned the landscape.

"Excellent work Sprinter Lance. Your orders now are to continue another ten miles or so—just to make sure. After that, return to the column, report to your squadron, and await further orders. Confirm command, over."

"Wilco command. Lance will reconnoiter ten to fifteen miles—" Borris was a stickler for exact numbers, so he added them into the order when the handler hadn't, "—and confirm lack of contact. Lance will then extricate to column position and await orders. Sprinter One, over."

"Don't work too hard, Sprinter One. Command out."

There was a moment as Borris killed his radio, then Tear was the first to speak.

"That is fucking excellent."

"Yes," Borris answered. Whisper could hardly contain himself he was so excited, but no words came from him. Just the consistent bobbing of his gun up and down with a slight shiver in his chassis.

The T-34/85 looked at Tear, hoping to nip everyone's excitement before they all got too ahead of themselves. "You're still point. We'll get this ten miles done in a half an hour and be back home before tomorrow's through. Let's get it done."

Eohelm chuckled. Borris was cold and calculating compared to most vehicles but his desire to get back home was as strong as everyone else's.

Tear nodded and after everyone finished refueling they got on with it.

It was six miles in before things started to go wrong.

It was Tear who crested the dune first, slowly. The team was running their engines very slow for the last miles, hoping to not give their position away just as they were going to be free. He immediately backed down as fast as he could, using gravity to get him down faster. He almost slammed into Borris as he stopped himself, muttering "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—" the entire way down.

"Goddamn _contact_," he hissed to everyone when he turned to them. "Goddamn _tanks_."

Borris gave a small snarl—not at his dyas-half, but at the situation. Whisper's response was a sliding click as a round slid into battery. Eohelm was fuming. So close to home. So close to getting back to the Corps free and clear and this bullshit happens.

None of them were angry at the concept of fighting. They were Dragonaurs. They were professionals. Tanks only fought better in the clan-lands to the North, as far as the team was concerned. They were angry at the idea of fighting when they were so close to being clear of the need.

As far as Feather taught, rule number one of fighting was to avoid doing it unless you were at advantage. The mentality had struck home with his soldiers. Weeks off from home, low on supplies, and low on morale from almost a week of defeats was not their idea of being "at advantage."

"How many? Models? Tiers? Distance?" Borris asked, rapid-fire. He was always the first of the lance to accept a situation and move on to ways of fixing it.

"Seven. Not a tier above five I think, though all I could see were two Shermans with long barrels. They were about five hundred yards out, I couldn't catch too much. Heading West to East."

Seven. If the lance had the element of surprise, it wasn't enough that they could claim they could honestly claim they were overhwhelmingly outnumbered and run. The Shermans with long barrels could be the tier 5 variant, but they could also be the big brother tier 6's with upped armor and firepower. That might be a problem.

And their direction was worse. West to East could mean one of two things. If the enemy team pushed North they could find themselves chewing on the tail-end of the retreating Dragonaurs column. If they went South, they'd be heading to one of the Eastern-most borders of their own lands. Would the four even need to engage if the seven went South? Would they need to wait, or would they lose the element of surprise?

There were only two advantage that Sprinter Lance had, as far as Eohelm could see: the element of surprise and near-full tanks of gas. If need be they could shoot and scoot; kill a few and leave. If Sprinter committed and needed to run they could do that too.

But their advanced orders were also to catch prisoners if they could. And this looked like a situation where they actually could. But that would involve commitment, not the five-hundred-yard firing-line that Eohelm would have opened with. Another complication.

As it stood, there were too many unknowns to make any decision. What were the enemy tanks? Did they look like they were heading home or towards friendlies? Did they know Sprinter was there?

Borris took the only course of action that made sense at the time: gather more information. He looked at Whisper, who packed a set of binoculars and had their best eyes.

"Find out what you can from a single cresting," Borris told him. "Report to us what you have. Only stay out for a few seconds or until you think they'll shoot at you, whichever comes first."

Whisper nodded and moved up. His cresting was painfully slow, everyone watching and praying that no fire came in. He stayed up top for ten seconds—just long enough to deploy the binocs and scan the enemy grouping—and rolled down peacefully.

"There's an Easy-Eight leading what looks like stragglers from the storm. A standard M4 with a long barrel, two Panzer IV(H)'s, a Matilda, a T-28, a Covenanter, and a Russian T-34. But they're clustered. They look scared. I think we can take them."

All optics turned on Borris. Ten more seconds passed.

"Here's the plan," He began.


	3. Shock

_Chapter Three -_

_Twelve Years Previous – The Great Desert Bridge of North Africa, the Sinai_

Tanks pump themselves up for a fight in many, many ways. Terror was normal. Eohelm would go so far to say that any tank _not_ feeling fear before an engagement was a danger to their allies, someone that couldn't be trusted, someone who shouldn't be fighting in the first place.

The Cromwell still remembered the first lesson that Feather had ever taught him: the acceptance of fear.

"The majority of our lives consist of beautiful moments, and we accept the emotions of these moments without pause," the T110E5 began. "The love we feel for those younglings that wander into our home, the children we adopt. The desire for the company of those close to us. The anger and frustration of a day where nothing goes right, the uncertainty when we grow into new bodies. All of this is normal, all of it we know and are familiar with."

Eohelm remembered the moment clear as day: sitting as a small Cruiser amidst a crowd of tier one and tier two tanks, tank destroyers, artillery pieces, and TRVs. Raptly at attention, soaking up every word as if it were high-octane gas. Eohelm would learn later that the T110E5 gave this speech to each new batch of trainees, as he would many other lessons. The impact of each was never lost.

"Yet," Feather would continue, "there are those here who think to shun fear before combat. Why? It is a feeling, like love. It is there to preserve us. Protect us. One runs away, obeying their fear, and they live. This is natural. But we deem it cowardly and unseemly."

Eohelm remembered feeling confused. Encouragement to run away and obey his fear while receiving acknowledgement of its base deformity of virtue? The two simply didn't fit. Panning his turret around, he could tell he wasn't the only one.

Feather could clearly see the frustration on some of their faces. His next words were calm and reassuring, a fixed point for all of his new students to grasp for.

"I feel," he began, "that we shun fear because only by ignoring it can we have courage. The latter cannot exist without the former. I remember being your age—ah, yes, a time did exist, to the shock of many! I remember wanting to be brave, wanting to stand out for being a champion of my friends and family.

"But then the time came and I was called upon to defend someone I love, to become the champion I knew I could be. I failed to rise to the challenge." At this Eohelm's small gun stood up straight as it could, a gesture of disbelief. Some of the others were more vocal in their denial. Feather gave a small chuckle at the reaction—he had expected it. But on his face was written clear sorrow, a terrible memory of one lost.

Eohelm, like everyone hearing this story, denied Feather's claim because they didn't want to believe it could happen to this massive machine. If it could happen to the leader of their new families, then it could happen to them. And the thought of failing everyone they knew was unbearable.

"Children, children," he panned over everyone with his massive cannon, an attempt to calm them. "I am telling you this because you all must know: in order to truly have courage, you must be able to ignore your fear. And to ignore your fear, you must first embrace it, know it, become intimately familiar with it so that you can most effectively cast it aside. Only then can you become the best that I know you can be."

The story still rang strong. To this day Feather never told who it was specifically he lost. He never shared what the circumstances were. The pain on his face was clear enough when he shared that none could deny the truth in his words. But Feather overcame and learned to embrace his fear. He held to his breast tight so he could change it to courage when the time came.

And he had confidence that all in his family could do that same.

Tear was nodding in a corner, telling himself that these motherfuckers had nothing on him. Nothing. He was the pain, he was death, and he'd give it to these fools like the master he was. The lines tended to change before every fight. He tended to swear a lot. All knew it for what it was: well-intentioned bluster. No one interrupted him.

Whisper was the calm professional, running diagnostics on all his parts in a sort of meditation. He spoke to no one and answered questions in a curt fashion, his voice the low tone that earned his name.

"They are standing between me and my daughter," was his mantra, his turret an unending symphony of clicks and scrapes as he ritually loaded and unloaded ammunition, testing his capability to put each round into battery as quickly as possible.

Borris was a stone, as always. The plan had been shared, everyone knew their jobs. It was his to start them off, and he knew he had to give everyone their minute before throwing them into a situation that could lead to their deaths.

His turret and gun were completely level. They didn't move an inch. If one didn't know better, they might think the T-34/85 was asleep. He wasn't. His ritual was completely unknown to everyone in the lance, even his dyas-half Tear. Silent, unmoving, and more frightening than Eohelm had ever seen him.

Eohelm ordinarily would have had his radio playing something to put him in the mood, but the radio was conveniently broken. Again. Combined with the desire for temporary stealth until the final moment, he needs must be content to sing softly to himself.

His musical choice for pre-combat tended to confuse his compatriots. The few times Tear used music to get ready for a fight it was death metal, a cacophony of growls and music as vicious as the chaos he would plunge into.

Eohelm had no problem with the style, even listened to it himself on some occasions. But before combat he felt a need to center himself. The music he listened to was almost always soft and enchanting but with strong intensive instrumentals, a piece on tragedy or love. It was easy for someone to lose themselves in.

Thirty seconds passed. Thirty seconds before Borris finally shifted his turret the merest centimeter.

"Let's do it before they regroup and this gets harder," he said. "Does everyone remember their jobs?"

His response was each tank double-tapping their transmit signals, their standard "affirmative" response when words weren't fast enough.

The ritual showed that everyone had switched into their murderous headspace: each was ready to put their life on the line and take that of another.

"Enact phase one, everyone engage on my mark," Borris said. Like the rest of the lance he was also ready for a fight. His tone was harder than usual, each of his words clipped as sharp as flint.

Eohelm and Whisper started to move around the lance's dune to Borris' left, Tear making a run to the right. Borris began to crest and somehow was able to line up a target without being seen.

Five seconds in, Eohelm's dyas and Tear each passed their respective dune side and began sprinting toward the enemy group five-hundred yards out. Eohelm and Whisper had defilading smaller dunes to their right, keeping them shielded to the enemy task force. Tear was exposed on the right flank, but he kept tearing toward the formation.

"Mark," everyone heard over Borris' radio. He used an open broadcast, ensuring that the enemy tanks would hear him as well. It was a fear tactic.

Eohelm could only just make out one of the Shermans panning its turret in a desperate hope of locating what just spoke. A couple of the other tanks looked at him with confusion. They were still clustered around each other, trying to find out where they were and what had happened over the course of the storm.

Tear hadn't been spotted yet. Neither had Borris. As the T-34/85's barrel roared and his first 85mm shell screamed downrange, Eohelm knew using words like "formation" and "task force" to describe the enemy tanks was generous.

They had no idea what was coming. They were fucked.

Borris' opening shot impacted the side of the enemy T-34. Sprinter Lance was too far away to hear a scream but the shell had an affect: the enemy tank began smoking from its engine as flames engulfed it, a terrible fate for any vehicle to suffer. His personal fire-fighting system wasn't kicking in.

"Begin phase two," Borris transmitted. This time he was using the lance's closed comm.

The T-34 could be heard howling and whimpering in pain as Eohelm crested the small running dune to his right. Sand kicked all around him as he fired on the move and dove back into defilade. Whisper did the same right behind him.

The shells impacted the dirt in the enemy formation as they scattered, two of the vehicles rushing to tend to the T-34 as the others panned out, an attempt to form a firing line. The dust clouds kicked up by the guns of Borris, Eohelm, and Whisper caught the attention of the enemy, but at the time only Borris could be seen.

A shell screeched out from the enemy's left flank. Tear. The tank's gun was less the thunder-clap of his dyas-half but his shells flew truer and faster. They tore through the air with audible effect, a banshee howling for death just before it impacted what looked like one of the other Panzer IV(H)s.

There was a noise like splintering steel, shattering chassis bones as the 75mm shell went straight through the front of the enemy tank. Somehow the vehicle had managed to return fire through the pain, mounting a small pile of sand and unfortunately silhouetting itself as its cannon kicked up earth.

Eohelm had no idea where Tear was. The plan had called for Borris to serve as the base of fire, an unending torrent of shells to keep enemy heads down. At a range of five-hundred yards his shots would still hurt if they hit, but likely his only accurate shot was to be his first.

Tear was to fire on the move until he hit three-hundred yards, then he would stop at a spot with decent cover and do the same. The Panzer IV(H) was a more accurate platform and Tear was naturally a better shot, which meant that when he fully deployed the team would have a shell coming in every two to three seconds in the form of the dyas.

Borris' gun roared once more. An explosion of sand threw off the aim of two enemy tanks as they tried to return fire. Explosions and dust went off just to the sides of the Russian. The resulting cloud of smoke and sand was parted violently, like breaking surf as he fired back at the enemy. His shells sounded like trains running overhead, a terrible moment of wrath and fury in the sky above.

Four hundred yards to the enemy formation.

Whisper crested behind Eohelm and stopped fully before firing his cannon. The dust kicked up gave him enough time to scramble for defilade. "I fucking got one!" He crowed into the radio. "I saw one dead T-34, a crippled Panzer IV, and I ganked their standard Sherman. I wish we could record his fucking turret fly."

Eohelm crested as well while Whisper gave a report, filling in everyone who couldn't currently see everything. The Cromwell fired and he saw his shell shatter the left track of the second Panzer IV. He dove for cover as well, felt the air split and heat as two shells just missed his engine deck.

The close call almost shook him from his killing trance. A hit like that might not kill him instantly, but he'd be dead weight in this isolated desert. If the fire didn't burn out his insides first.

Keep to the fucking plan, he told himself. Keep to the plan and you'll be fine.

Eohelm's dyas was to spring through the defilade to the enemy's right flank. With luck, skill, and surprise, Borris and Tear in theory would have killed at least four of the enemy tanks. With the rain of shells landing among their poor position the lower-tier tanks would be flustered and confused, easy pickings to force a surrender.

Another crack of splitting air as Tear fired once more. "Three hundred and fifty yards!" He yelled. The brief moment that he spoke Eohelm could hear rounds shrieking past. There was an explosion nearby that must have been a miss.

At three hundred and twenty five yards Eohelm and Whisper crested their dune once more and fired twice before ducking back below, their own booming cannons resounding with Borris' 85mm monster and Tear's more precise piece.

Plumes of dirt fell among the enemy. The Covenanter took two shells to his side, one piercing his tracks to continue through his body. Fluid leaked as he cried out in pain one last time before the sheer shock and momentum of Borris' next shell tore off his turret.

At three hundred yards Tear was on the radio again: "Halting! But these fuckers are laying it on. Keep firing!" His response was another resounding blast from Borris' dune.

At two-hundred and fifty the cover of Eohelm and Whisper's small dune ended. They seemed to blast through thin clouds of dust, suddenly visible to the enemy's right, their guns blaring the entire way.

Eohelm's dyas was now the one in the open, but the plan was working perfectly. Tear and Borris were laying fire down without mercy and the enemy could feel it. Now that he had a clear view and he wasn't taking split-second snap-shots, Eohelm could finally see the group of enemy tanks clearly.

The Easy-Eight was a stone amongst a tide of fire, his left track shattered but most of his hull hidden behind a small rise. He had nasty scrapes all along his side and the front of his turret from a few day's fighting, but Eohelm could hear him shouting orders to his small crew.

One of the Panzer IV(H)s was to the right of the E8, a smoking hulk. It took its hit trying to shield what was left of the T-34 behind it. The small Russian medium was still a pillar of flame, blasted internal ammunition ripping massive holes in the front and sides of its hull.

To the left of the E8 was the second Panzer IV(H), its cannon blazing bravely away at Tear's position, both of its tracked shattered into pieces. The tank's side-skirts were twisted wrecks. One was bent at an unnatural angle, still trying to help cover the body of the dead Covenanter.

Just the body. The head was a wreckage of bent and burnt metal ten yards behind.

The T-28 and Matilda were hiding behind small dunes to the back-right of the E8, blasting with their small cannons at the distant figure of Borris. All around them dirt exploded with shell impacts.

Eohelm was almost overcome with the bravery of the enemy before him. Their best were dead but still one wounded Panzer and two frightened tier four tanks held on to their ground because of the sheer charisma and desperation of one Easy-Eight.

He almost stopped and wept for the enemy. How he feared for his life to be on the receiving end of his lance's textbook ambush. How he lay awake at night not wanting to burn alive in some sick desert, far from home. How he wanted to run and hide from the hate of the world when he saw his nightmare lived by those he loved on campaign.

How he kept going because in the end he knew no other life.

The enemy were standing and fighting against odds they must have known they couldn't win against. Their bodies were broken, they leaked fuel everywhere, and their friends—companions, brothers, lovers?—lay dead at their tracks.

It was Whisper's cannon that shook Eohelm out of his emotional stupor and back into the matter at hand. The T21's cannon split the side of the living Panzer IV, the tank's armor shreiking as it parted and the shell founds its way to the ammunition storage.

Whisper was extremely good at picking enemy weak points out when he could stop and aim. The enemy Panzer exploded brilliantly, it's already shattered chassis giving way under the power of its shells detonating. Burning fuel flew everywhere and another massive pillar of disgusting black smoke was added to those already reaching toward the sky, trying to hold it up with the valor of their last breath.

"Sprinter, focus fire on entrenched Easy-Eight, center of enemy position!" Eohelm shouted into his radio. He thanked the gods that his radio chose then to work when Tear and Borris gave double-tap radio bursts and the pillars of sand and fire around the E8 intensified.

That was when everything went wrong.

The Easy-Eight gave a scream over an open channel. "RUN!" He howled, supposedly hoping his two last survivors would hear him. Eohelm heard cannon fire slacken as the Matilda and T-28 disengaged. Then the Easy-Eight fired his cannon one last time to his front-left.

Eohelm then heard two things. He heard Borris in his radio: "Sprinter Three, run down those survivors. We need prisoners!" Moments later he heard an ear-shattering howl over the radio.

Tear.

"I'm hit!" he shouted. "Fucking Sherman got me!" He howled in pain and the line was cut with a short static burst.

Everything happened suddenly. Whisper fired a shell that went clean through the side of the turret of the Sherman, the E8 giving a good shot as he panned to engage Tear. Fire from the Sherman ceased, his life and valiant last stand ended in an almost anticlimactic moment.

Whisper shouted for Eohelm to find those fucking runners. The T21 turned to their right to go about the bodies of the enemy; to search for valuables and make sure everyone was actually dead.

Borris gave a report to Eohelm's dyas that they were to continue on mission and regroup at Tear's position when the area was cleared and hostages captured.

Tear's radio must have been damaged when he was hit.

He wasn't responding no matter how much everyone shouted his name.


	4. Stone

_Chapter Four -_

_Twelve Years Previous – The Great Desert Bridge of North Africa, the Sinai_

Eohelm didn't need to run far after cresting the dune that the T-28 and Matilda ran behind. The dune covered, from Sprinter Lance's sight, several hundred yards of flat land. The T-28 was trying to push his friend forward, the Matilda's poor speed costing the team mobility.

Eohelm was amazed at the willingness of the T-28 to stay with his slow ally, trying push him along even though he knew that they'd be caught. The T-28 was a very fast vehicle considering its size and the punching power of its 57mm cannon, but it didn't have the engine power to push the Matilda with any amount of speed.

The two were only a hundred yards past the dune when Eohlem caught them, holding the two in his cannon's sights.

"Don't you move. You're my prisoners now," he told them both, fighting to keep his voice level. His body was starting to realize that the fight was over, and he was beginning to start fear-shedding, something he couldn't afford to do now.

Fear-shedding was the inescapable post-combat euphoria. The nerves were frayed, the mind and soul stretched to near the breaking point after staring death in the face like he just did. When one knew that the fight was over and they were alive, the body began shaking, violently purging all of the canned anxiety that fueled the body's fight-or-flight reaction. After a large action, the young tanks would try taking in fuel or try cleaning themselves, dressing their tracks or tweaking their guns' actions. But the body wouldn't respond properly, for fear-shedding overcame all ability to act with any amount of dexterity. Older tanks would always chuckle at the young vehicles, knowing from experience that you couldn't make the body stop its quaking once you really started. You had to let it go until it was done.

Eohlem didn't see the T-28 or the Matilda as a threat. If he fired, he'd go clear through both tanks and kill them almost instantly. Because of this, his body was starting to quake, realizing that his trial of life and death was done. He couldn't afford to let it happen, or he'd never be able to effectively keep these two as prisoners.

Fortunately for him, neither of the fourth-tier vehicles noticed his small shakes as he fought to keep his combat-anxiety canned up. The T-28 was trying to look strong, the Matilda weeping. Eohelm only just then noticed that the Matilda had two holes through the front of its chassis, wounds that looked like they were inflicted earlier in the week.

"Get back, you fucking bastard!" The T-28 shouted, leveling his gun toward the Cromwell. Eohelm's 75mm gun panned specifically over the T-28, keeping the young tank frightened and aback. It worked. The small Russian didn't fire, but he didn't move the gun either.

Eohelm also didn't fire. He was too shocked at what he was looking at. The T-28 sounded like a _teenager_. It's voice was that of a child. What on earth was it doing here? Why was it fighting? Eohelm was simultaneously taken aback by its youth and by the bravery exhibited by it, pointing its gun at something two tiers higher and ten years older than it.

"Put the gun down, boy. What are you doing here? Why were you traveling with an Almohaes Easy-Eight?" He didn't lower his 75mm or shift it to the Matilda. He didn't need to. That tank was silent as the grave, with exception of its low sobbing.

"Why do you think, you fucker? We were defending ourselves! You Dragonaur fuckers came into our land! You killed our people! So we mobilized everyone, even those as young as us!" The T-28's voice was a snarl, its tone made of hatred and, simultaneously, sorrow. "You invaded us! We didn't do anything!"

"We invaded in response to _your_ raids, boy. Put your gun down, you're coming with me." Eohelm didn't lower his, trying to talk the small tank down. He would never forgive himself if he had to kill a teenager.

_How old were those tanks we just fought?_

It occurred to Eohelm that the reason the Dragonaur forces had been pushed back so harshly is because they were swamped by entire regiments made of tier 4 and 5 tanks. They hardly ever saw a tank over tier 6—those were all either officers or elite units. The Almohaes forces took an extreme amount of casualties in their first few waves of assaults, but their vicious attacks had paid off in the long run, forcing the Dragonaurs tanks back with extreme losses.

The Dragonaurs had been fighting against child soldiers.

Eohelm had been killing child soldiers.

He wanted to be sick.

"Please," he said, trying not to shake. "Put your gun down. I promise, you'll be treated well."

"No!" The T-28 yelled. "We've _heard_ what you do to prisoners! We _know_! We'll _never_ come with you! Leave us alone!" The Matilda was still weeping beside it. The Cromwell knew that the small medium would need to be pushed, its own post-combat anxieties were reducing it to a blubbering mess.

Eohelm had no idea what these young ones had heard, but he had every intention of keeping these two well-treated as prisoners. Every intention of ensuring their safety. His nerves were stretched as far as they could have been after a week of desperate fighting, one of his friends was dying a few hundred yards behind him, and he wanted to sit and let himself shake and rest. He wanted these two to be safe so he could figure out what the fuck they had been told, and he wanted to forget that he'd been fighting teenagers this entire time.

Eohelm sighed. He was exhausted, and he needed to know what was happening with Tear. His nerves were at their breaking point. "Come on," he said, as gently as he could, positioning himself behind the two youngsters so that he could push the Matilda to his Lance's position.

That was his plan at least, until the T-28 howled "_NO_!" and shot Eohelm in the side.

The Cromwell's snap-reaction was to pan his turret over as quickly as he could and return fire. He was exhausted and his instincts kicked in before he could stop himself, his 75mm shell cutting the T-28 open below the turret. It blew through the T-28s left-hand armor and, with smoke and fire, ripped a massive hole out of the right-hand armor as the warped shell came clean through and dug itself into the sand behind the T-28s smoking body.

The small Russian died less than a second after Eohelm fired, and its body was still burning when Eohelm realized what he'd done. The Cromwell got sick, vomiting old oil, a small bit of radiator fluid, and hydraulic fluid in disgust. His fear-purging kicked in then and he couldn't stop it, his chassis vibrating violently as the Matilda continued weeping beside him.

Tear had been slow dying.

It took Eohelm five minutes to get himself under control, letting himself shake and rattle until he could finally do more than drive. During this time he nudged the small Matilda forward, asking its name as he tried to protect it from the sight of it friend's corpse.

"Stone," she replied between sobs. She also proffered her brave companion's name, Mall.

Try as he might to shield Stone from seeing Mall's body, Eohelm could do nothing about the graveyard of her old team that they had to pass to reach his Lance again.

She saw the Panzer IV(H)s, each burning and trying to protect a dead member—one of them in front of a T-34 that was mostly a blackened wreck, the sand around it also darkened with the intensity of its ammunition exploding; the other Panzer IV was in front of a headless Covenanter, both tanks twisted macabre imitations of their former selves. In the center of it all was the E8, a monument to their heroism. His death-blow could still be seen clearly, a small entrance hole on his lower-left turret that turned into a ghastly exit-wound the size of a large stone.

Eohelm had trouble moving Stone before. It took him more than a few minutes to move her through what was left of her team.

He didn't ask how old they were. He knew that the E8 was in its twenties, like him. But the rest? Tier fives generally ranged from their late teenage years to their early twenties, all old enough. But the Covenanter was likely a child as well.

Eohelm hardened himself as much as he could, pushing Stone to his Lance. Sprinter did what it had to do. In taking out this group, Sprinter had not only defended itself but also likely protected their column. These could have been stragglers, but they also could have been scouts. And that could have turned into disaster. Sprinter had also been acting on orders. Take prisoners if possible. The weeping Matilda was not the kind of prisoner that Eohelm would have picked, but it was what they had.

Whisper met Eohelm about seventy yards from Tear's position. The T20 had a haggard look on his face when he approached the Cromwell. Whisper gave Stone a nasty look.

"Where's the other?" He asked.

"He fought back. Instinct took over."

Whisper sighed. "Borris won't like this. His mood is the worst its ever been. Tear couldn't tell us how bad it was. The first hit took out his radio. He's got something like eight or ten penetrating hits that he hadn't reported. Three in the engine deck, he's got a shell lodged in his turret ring, and the others tore up his insides. I have no idea how he fought through it. He hasn't actually passed yet." He paused and sighed.

"I'll watch this one," Whisper motioned to Stone, "you go see Tear before he goes. There's no way we can fix him and still get home without being cut off by other scouting parties."

Eohelm left the Matilda and made for Tear's position. He turned the corner of the dune and saw Borris there with his dyas-half. Whisper hadn't been exaggerating.

Tear's dying was nasty. There were holes everywhere. Fluids leaked from them and the sand around Tear was as black as the smoke that was pouring from two of the wounds in his engine deck. His side-skirts were ragged and torn everywhere, and the exit holes on many of his wounds were horrendously large compared to their entries.

The shell that lodged itself into his turret ring had scraped a nasty gash into the side of his gun doing it, rendering the piece unusable. How long had he been unable to fire? Was it a recent hit, or did it put him out of action for most of the fight? The base of fire was intense, but the action happened so quickly that Eohelm hadn't had time to notice if Tear's end had slackened at all.

Somehow, the tank was still alive. Borris was standing track to track with him, waiting with him while he died. Eohelm rolled up to the Panzer, and Borris didn't say anything. Tear wheezed out a ragged breath between the horrid sounds that his engine was making, straining to stay alive for as long as it could despite the fact that its essence bled all over the accursed desert.

"Why the long face, mate?"

Eohem tried not to cry, but the gesture of Tear asking him why he looked upset was too much to bear. He tried to blubber out an apology. A kind word to send Tear on his way. But he couldn't manage, the lump in his throat was too big. Between Tear's wheezing, there was something of a chuckle.

"You need to learn to cheer up, man. I'm going to paradise! I went down shooting and I've lived through this shit way longer than I should have. I just wanted to say goodbye to all of you."

Eohelm still couldn't think of what to say. Tear was a virtual manifestation of valor to him, to be smiling at death the way he was.

Tear panned his turret as much as he could, looking sideways at Borris. "You guys need to get a move on. You don't want to get cut off or left behind."

Before his dying engine finally coughed its last, Tear managed one ragged sigh. "Today was a _good_ day."


End file.
